


what drowning feels like

by lonelyghosts



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:47:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23291170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonelyghosts/pseuds/lonelyghosts
Summary: Susan, twelve and almost-mother.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20





	what drowning feels like

She is almost a mother at twelve, with Father gone and Mother mourning and then in the Professor's House with no adults to take care of the rest of them, and she has never hated being alive more.

Every day is work. Back before they came to the Professor's, it was wake up at five, take a shower, get dressed, get the others out of bed, make breakfast, wake up Edmund who's already fallen back asleep, make sure everyone gets dressed and brushes and eats and gets to school on time, come home from school and sweep, clean, make dinner, set the table, darn a hole in Peter's trous, have dinner, help Lucy with homework, pack tomorrow's lunches, do her own homework, go to bed at midnight nearly out of her mind from lack of sleep.

Now at the Professor's, Susan has to teach, too, because Peter's rubbish at it and she's the oldest after him. Susan Pevensie gives everything she has to her siblings. There is nothing left of her. She is falling apart. She is so, so tired. 

And still- she is bossy. She is prudish. She is rude, she is silly, she is a little girl playing at being a woman. She is twelve years old and holding her family together by a thread, and teachers laugh, men ruffle her hair, smile down at her patronizingly. Every door in the world that might lead to something that could save her is shut in her face- shut gently, but that does not matter. A closed door is still a closed door.

Back at home, she sat in home economics class and wanted nothing more than to be in woodshop with Peter. She wanted to make something real, out of her own hands, to shape it and carve it and turn it into her own until it belonged to her totally, until it became a part of her. She wanted to mold the world into something; a world where she could save her family as it fell apart under the stress and strain of a missing father and a mother out of her mind with grief and fear. Or a world where she didn't have to. 

Narnia is her only home, until it's gone, and then- well, then Susan decides that if she can't find a world that will give her peace and let her keep it, then she'll carve one out herself.

**Author's Note:**

> susan pevensie deserves better than what c.s. lewis gave her


End file.
